In this brief educational talk, Dr. David Perlmutter explains that free radicals—reactive chemicals that oxidize and damage tissue—are a central factor in brain degeneration and Alzheimer’s disease. He cites a 2007 Archives of Neurology study showing that oxidative damage to lipids, proteins, DNA, and RNA is markedly increased in the brains of individuals who died from Alzheimer’s, establishing oxidative stress as an early event in the disease’s pathogenesis and a potential therapeutic target. While many people turn to antioxidants to neutralize free radicals, Dr. Perlmutter argues that the more effective strategy is to address the upstream cause of radical production: glycation, which occurs when blood sugar binds to proteins. Reducing dietary sugar and refined carbohydrates can lower glycation, thereby decreasing oxidative damage and potentially slowing or preventing Alzheimer’s onset.
Chapters
These days everybody's taking the latest and greatest antioxidant. Why do we take antioxidants? To reduce the action of free radicals, because free radicals are those chemicals that damage our tissue. They oxidize our tissue. It's like a piece of iron that's put out in the weather, it will rust. Well, we now know that this action of free radicals is really the cornerstone of brain degeneration, and that comes to us from the Archives of Neurology that's put out by the American Medical Association. Let's look at this study. This study from, again, Archives of Neurology back in 2007 shows us that damage to lipids, proteins, DNA, and even RNA sets the stage for what is called mild cognitive impairment that leads to dementia. So we really need to understand this information. They looked at the brains of individuals who died of Alzheimer's or individuals who died of other causes, and as you'll notice here, the damage in those brains from free radicals was dramatically increased in those individuals dying of Alzheimer's disease. And their conclusion is that free radicals play an important role in the pathogenesis, or what causes Alzheimer's disease. Oxidative damage is an early event In the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease that can serve as a therapeutic target to slow the progression or perhaps, get this, the onset of the disease. That's important information. It doesn't necessarily mean that we need to go out and find the latest greatest antioxidant, but what we should do is try to figure out what it is that's causing so much production of free radicals in the first place And what does that in humans is when our blood sugar binds to protein, that's called glycation. That's a dramatic cause of increased damage from free radicals. We reduce that by reducing the sugar and carbohydrates in our diets. I'm Dr. David Perlmutter.
